


A Little Happy Ever After

by Mazarin221b



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A Scandal In Belgravia, Christmas, F/M, Molly-pov, happy endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-17
Updated: 2012-04-17
Packaged: 2017-11-03 19:58:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazarin221b/pseuds/Mazarin221b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite all of the horrible things he says, that he thinks, he does have a heart buried down somewhere deep and untouchable. But now, watching his eyes coldly rake the body of someone known, she wonders if it could ever be unlocked, unleashed, by anyone. She’s never been more certain than she is right now that it will never be by her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Happy Ever After

Leaving the party, Molly decides, is always the most awkward part. Especially when you’re leaving because the hosts are occupied with other matters more important than nibbles and wine.

Given the company in the room, she supposes it’s inevitable. But the sudden chill of panic when Sherlock looked at his text was startling, and she sighs with sympathy when John comes back to tell Greg that Sherlock is expecting someone they know to turn up at the morgue soon.

“I’m so sorry, Molly,” John says, and places a warm hand on her shoulder. “We never catch a break, it seems.” He pats her kindly, walks over to his girlfriend where she’s sitting on the sofa. Jeanette (she thinks it’s Jeanette, but this is his fourth in seven months, so it’s difficult) is scowling, and it’s clear she isn’t nearly as accustomed to being caught up in Sherlock’s wake as the rest of them are. It is slightly pathetic, really, for all of them, and she feels a little sympathy for the poor woman.

Greg is on his phone, calling in to see if anyone’s turned up unidentified, and when she sees him roll his eyes skyward, she knows they have.

“Thanks, thanks. Yes, we’ll be there in a bit. I’ll do it, it’s no problem. I’m over here anyway.” He hangs up and looks at Molly with a tight smile.

“Woman with a bashed in face just showed up, being transferred to Bart’s. No ID, but I’ve got a pretty good guess who can help.  Looks like the party’s over.” Greg hastily swallows the last of his beer and puts the glass in the sink. “Yours is on the way; give you a lift home?” He smiles at her, and Molly’s face heats. Greg is awfully kind, always stops to chat with her on his way in or out of the morgue, drop her a cup of better coffee than she usually can get from the canteen on overnights. The flattering little half-grin she caught on his face as he handed her a glass of wine was new, too. She often wonders how people can be such polar opposites, and why it is she’s managed to find herself absolutely gone on the wrong end of the compass this time.

  
“Yes, thanks,” she says, and looks around for her coat.  It’s hanging on the back of a chair in the kitchen, and as she pulls it over her shoulders she glances down the hallway and is startled to find the door to Sherlock’s room cracked open, one critical eye peering at her. She catches his gaze and the door slams quickly, making her heart clench and his kiss burn on her cheek.   




…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 “Here you are, Molls. Sorry it was a bit of a bust of an evening. Waste of a pretty dress, and all.” He smiles warmly, not a hint of a leer in his expression, and Molly wonders, again, why this gorgeous man doesn’t set her stomach fluttering the way Sherlock can with a simple glance, or a half-muttered ‘thank you Molly’ as he looks through a microscope.

Molly looks out the window of Greg’s car at her own front door. She could just go home, climb into her pyjamas, and not come out until tomorrow afternoon, just in time to get to Mum’s. But that wanker Jonas is the only one down in the morgue to attend, and the idea makes her cringe. He’s got all the delicacy and tact of a brick.

“If you wait for just 10 minutes, I’ll go back with you to the hospital,” she says, one hand on the door handle.

Greg’s eyes get wide. “You’re off, Molly. You don’t need to. I think Harmon is down there tonight.”

“Greg, do you really want Sherlock to deal with _Jonas_?”

“Good point.”

“I’ll be right down.” Molly ducks out of the car, darts up the steps to her flat, unlocks the door and throws her coat down on the sofa. She strips off her dress as she goes back to her bedroom and pulls out her jeans and jumper for tomorrow, and as she waits for the water to get warm in the bathroom sink, she looks in the mirror.

Eyes done up, dark and smoky. Deep red lipstick just this side of too dark but she didn’t have time to get another. Silver spangle earrings that seemed fun and playful earlier that night now seem dreadfully tacky and overly large. _Overcompensating_ , she hears her mind whisper and she pulls them off, dumps them in the trash. Her hair dips and swirls in the water in the sink, the ends dark-tipped and dripping as she pours face soap on a flannel and scrubs until her skin feels raw.  No sense in keeping the ‘do, then, and it’s ridiculously inappropriate anyway, so she tears the bow out, picks out half a dozen pins, and pulls a brush through her hair until the hairspray loosens, leaving it in long, soft waves that spill over her shoulders.

The garish light in her bathroom has never been flattering, so when she looks in the mirror she sees what she usually sees. Small, pale, mousy, quiet.  Kind, maybe. Smart, sometimes. But not often enough, it seems. _Damn_ , she tells herself as her eyes well up. _I_ _am bloody well not going to cry over Sherlock Holmes_. A tear spills over, tracking down her cheek, and she slams her fist down on the sink in frustration.

She doesn’t know who this dead woman is, if she’s a friend or a lover or a relative, and she’s desperately telling herself it doesn’t matter. Sherlock matters, and despite his ugly habit of telling truths too accurate for anyone’s ears, especially her own, she still cares about him, and no one deserves finding a friend dead on Christmas. She sniffs again, blows her nose. Fantastic. Her cheeks are blotchy now, her nose red.

_Margaret Elizabeth Hooper, get a hold of yourself,_ she scolds. _Your friend needs you, even if he doesn’t know it yet._

So she pulls on her red Christmas jumper and jeans, her boots and heavy coat, and runs down the stairs. She yanks open the door to Greg’s car and drops into the passenger seat.

“Okay. I’m ready,” she says, and she means it.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The body, when she sees it, is startling.

It’s perfect, really;  unmarked, unmarred by cuts or bruises or broken bones, except for one startling wound. The lovely woman with the creamy skin and beautiful raven hair was beaten so severely about the face it’s nothing but a swollen, purple mass.  Molly doesn’t even need to do the autopsy to know that blunt-force trauma is the cause of death here.

The woman is curious, though. Her hair is still up in an elaborate, old-fashioned hairstyle, only a few pieces loose, and her nails long and red and unmarred by defensive wounds. There is absolutely nothing on her that indicates she had any idea what was coming and was able to defend herself against it. Even the clothes that had been removed were untouched; not a tear, not a smudge.

Molly drapes the woman with a sheet. She’s a puzzle, all right, and that’s what Sherlock likes. But Molly has the sneaking suspicion that isn’t what makes her so important. She’s not his sister, as he doesn’t have one.  Is she a client? A friend? His girlfriend, maybe? Her heart clenches at the thought – it was so much easier to believe that Sherlock’s lack of interest in her was really down to lack of interest in anyone, but ... if this poor dead woman is someone close to him, she aches for his heartbreak.

Her desk is more cluttered than it should be, full of paper and old cups left in the haste of last minute work before Christmas, so it takes a moment to find the woman’s transfer paperwork so she can get it put into the system . Her chair creaks as she settles and starts entering some preliminary information, keeping one ear tuned to the sound of the swinging door at the end of the hall, the snap of air that tells her that someone is on their way.

Two someones, from the steps in the hall. Sherlock and John, most likely, so when she ducks into the autopsy bay, she’s shocked to find Sherlock with his brother. She struggles, tries to remember his name but fails. He’s visited Sherlock in the laboratory a few times, and from what she’s seen, their relationship isn’t what she’d call friendly, so if he’s here, it must be someone he’s interested in as well. 

“You didn’t have to come in, Molly,” Sherlock says as they step up to the table, and her heart stutters in her chest.  Oh dear God, why didn’t she think of this before, he probably thinks she’s throwing herself at him again, oh _biscuits._ “It’s ok, everyone else is busy with Christmas…” _Stop babbling_ “… er, um, the face is a bit sort of … bashed up, so it might be a bit difficult.” She pulls down the sheet, and Sherlock doesn’t even flinch.

“That’s her, isn’t it.” The brother’s face is equally as impassive, betraying nothing.

“Show me the rest of her.”

Sherlock’s request isn’t unusual, but if he’s looking for an identifying mark or freckle, that means he’s likely seen this woman naked at least once. Molly twitches, but folds down the sheet.

He stares, his eyes darting over the woman’s entire body, his beautiful mind absorbing data, clues, things too miniscule for anyone else to notice. It’s what makes him so fascinating, why Molly’s so breathless whenever he’s around. He’s gorgeous, yes, but there’s so much more, an intellect like nothing she’s ever experienced and it amazes her, leaves her awed.

“That’s her,” Sherlock says sharply and turns immediately to leave, the doors swinging closed behind him.

Molly’s imagination goes into overdrive. The idea that Sherlock could know this woman, know her well enough to identify her by her body alone…

“Who is she?” Molly blurts, her voice stopping his brother from following him. “How did Sherlock know her from … not her face?”

His brother just smiles and walks away without saying a word, leaving Molly nervous and confused and no wiser than she was before.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Molly tidies up, puts the body back into storage, finishes the paperwork. It’s 2 AM, and if she goes home now, she’ll still be able to get enough sleep to be at least somewhat coherent at her Mum’s Boxing Day dinner. 

She’s seen lot of strange things in Sherlock Holmes company, odd deaths and weird circumstance and  frankly alarming motivations that seem to come from a novel, not real life. But nothing has unsettled her like the sight of his lovely eyes, the eyes she dreams about at night, cataloguing someone he knows with the same cold concentration he saves for the subjects of his investigations.

After Sherlock’s apology earlier tonight Molly was thrilled to her toes, content in being completely vindicated in what she’d always believed about him. Despite all of the horrible things he says, that he thinks, he does have a heart buried down somewhere deep and untouchable. But now, watching his eyes coldly rake the body of someone known, she wonders if it could ever be unlocked, unleashed, by anyone. She’s never been more certain than she is right now that it will never be by her.

The lights shut off with a satisfying snap, and Molly’s just ready to go home. One too many emotional shocks this evening, and she really could do with another glass of wine. As she walks back into her office from the autopsy bay, she’s surprised to see Greg sitting in her visitor’s chair.

“Since I brought you here, and it being so late and all, I thought you could use a way home,” he says, and there’s that smile again, the kind one, the friendly one.

“I could, thanks. Been a bit of a long one.”

“Tell me about it. Listen,” Greg says, and rubs his hand along his jaw. “Don’t mind all that shite Sherlock was spewing earlier. He’s useless with that sort of thing.”

Molly smiles ruefully, remembers what little tidbit Sherlock decided to spew out about Greg. “Yeah. Well, he’s right, most of the time.”

“Only partially. My wife’s sleeping with the English teacher.”

Molly laughs then chokes it off. “Oh, oh Greg, I’m so sorry. I thought you were back together.”

Greg shakes his head. “Pathetic attempt at best. We’ve been trying, for Claire, but two years is really just too long.”

He stops, and Molly feels the awkwardness descend. She has the urge to talk, break the silence, but she has no idea what to say.

“I’m sorry, Molls,” he says, shakes his head. “That wasn’t—I mean, you don’t want to hear that.”

“Oh, no, really, I just, well, Sherlock really does manage to make us all sound rather horrible, doesn’t he?” Molly shifts her bag over her shoulder, turns toward the door. “We should probably go.”

“Yeah, here, let me take that.” Greg slides her bag from her shoulder, lifts it onto his. They walk down the hall in silence but when they get to the doors, Greg pauses, one hand on the doorhandle. “Listen, um, if Sherlock’s revelations didn’t put you off entirely, would you be interested in going for a coffee, sometime? I know place with great espresso.”

Molly’s stunned. Wasn’t she just telling herself earlier that she always falls for the wrong kind of man? Sure, Greg is incredibly handsome, and sweet and funny, and kind, and, and … she is certifiably insane, standing here watching him glance downward and rub a hand across the back of his neck.

“Yes,” she blurts quickly. “I mean, yes, espresso would be lovely. Thank you.”

Greg beams at her. “Next overnight?”

“Tuesday,” Molly says, and finds herself smiling back. “Right before? I’ll need it.”

“I’ll make it a double then,” Greg says, and as they walk toward his car, Molly dares tuck her hand into the crook of his elbow.  Greg looks down at his arm, smiles a slow, pleased smile. Molly blushes, she can feel it to the roots of her hair.

And when the butterflies start up, all she can do is giggle.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this the day after Scandal In Belgravia aired, thought maybe I'd add to the end, then got distracted by other things and let it lie. But four months in, I find it rather interesting that the only thing that Scandal sparked in me was an examination of Molly, who, it turns out now, was likely the most important person at the end. The one Sherlock trusted. The one he needed.


End file.
